The other day, while looking online for information on how to keep potatoes from sprouting while stored, I found out a few interesting things. To paraphrase:
1. Keep potatoes in a cool, dark place.* Keep an apple in with your potatoes. The gasses released by the apple seems to help retard the potatoes breaking dormancy and sprouting.
2. If your potatoes do sprout, it's not harmful, though it will cause the potatoes to become a little dehydrated. In fact, if you're talking Russett baking potatoes, it's a good thing, because the dehydration actually makes them fluffier for baking. (This is true! I just tested the theory with some taters that had inch-long sprouts on them, and they turned out better than they had before sprouting!).
Speaking of baking potatoes...I love doing them this way now: Coat the spud with a little butter or oil (maybe even just butter-flavored cooking spray) and pierce the skin a couple times with a fork. Bake unwrapped in a 425-degree oven for about 45 minutes. Oh, my, do they turn out crispy and delicious.
* If you refrigerate potatoes, the starches in them break down to sugars. For potatoes you plan on using for frying, this is not a good thing, but it's okay for baking potatoes.
This message was edited Tuesday, Mar 11th 2:48 PM
